In Conversation

Poll-arized

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Aug 2024 21:08:32 +0000

Poll-arized Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 08/16/2024 - 15:08

By Joe Arney

Deepfakes. Distrust. Data manipulation. Is it any wonder American democracy feels like it has reached such a dangerous tipping point?

As our public squares have emptied of reasoned discussion, and our social media feeds have filled with vitriol, viciousness and villainy, we鈥檝e found ourselves increasingly isolated and unable to escape our echo chambers. And while it鈥檚 easy to blame social media, adtech platforms or the news, it鈥檚 the way these forces overlap and feed off each other that鈥檚 put us in this mess.

It鈥檚 an important problem to confront as we close in on a consequential election, but the issue is bigger than just what happens this November, or whether you identify with one party or another. Fortunately, the College of Media, Communication and Information was designed for just these kinds of challenges, where a multidisciplinary approach is needed to frame, address and solve increasingly complex problems.

鈥淒emocracy is not just about what happens in this election,鈥� said Nathan Schneider, an assistant professor of media studies and an expert in the design and governance of the internet. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a much longer story, and through all the threats we鈥檝e seen, I鈥檝e taken hope from focusing my attention on advancing democracy, rather than just defending it.鈥�

We spoke to Schneider and other CMCI experts in journalism, information science, media studies, advertising and communication to understand the scope of the challenges. And we asked one big question of each in order to help us make sense of this moment in history, understand how we got here and鈥攎aybe鈥攆ind some faith in the future.

***

Newsrooms have been decimated. The younger generation doesn鈥檛 closely follow the news. Attention spans have withered in the TikTok age. Can we count on journalism to serve its Fourth Estate function and deliver fair, accurate coverage of the election?

Mike McDevitt, a former editorial writer and reporter, isn鈥檛 convinced the press has learned its lessons from the 2016 cycle, when outlets chased ratings and the appearance of impartiality over a commitment to craft that might have painted more accurate portraits of both candidates. High-quality reporting, he said, may mean less focus on finding scoops and more time sharing resources to chase impactful stories.

How can journalism be better?

鈥淎 lot of journalists might disagree with me, but I think news media should be less competitive among each other and find ways to collaborate, especially with the industry gutted. And the news can鈥檛 lose sight of what鈥檚 important by chasing clickable stories. Covering chaos and conflict is tempting, but journalism鈥檚 interests in this respect do not always align with the security of democracy. While threats to democracy are real, amplifying chaos is not how news media should operate during an era of democratic backsliding.鈥�

***

After the 2016 election, Brian C. Keegan was searching for ways to use his interests in the computer and social sciences in service of democracy. That鈥檚 driven his expertise in public-interest data science鈥攈ow to make closed data more accessible to voters, journalists, activists and researchers. He looks at how campaigns can more effectively engage voters, understand important issues and form policies that address community needs.

The U.S. news media has blood on its hands from 2016. It will go down as one of the worst moments in the history of American journalism.鈥�

Mike McDevitt
Professor, journalism

You鈥檝e called the 2012 election an 鈥渆nd of history鈥� moment. Can you explain that in the context of what鈥檚 happening in 2024?

鈥淚n 2012, we were coming out of the Arab Spring, and everyone was optimistic about social media. The idea that it could be a tool for bots and state information operations to influence elections would have seemed like science fiction. Twelve years later, we鈥檝e finally learned these platforms are not neutral, have real risk and can be manipulated. And now, two years into the large language model moment, people are saying these are just neutral tools that can only be a force for good. That argument is already falling apart.

I think 2024 will be the first, and last,
A.I. election.鈥�

Brian C. Keegan
Assistant professor, information science

鈥淵ou could actually roll the clock back even further, to the 1960s and 鈥�70s, when people were thinking about Silent Spring and Unsafe at Any Speed, and recognizing there are all these environmental, regulatory, economic and social things all connected through this lens of the environment. Like any computing system, when it comes to data, if you have garbage in, you get garbage out. The bias and misinformation we put into these A.I. systems are polluting our information ecosystem in ways that journalists, activists, researchers and others aren鈥檛 equipped to handle.鈥�

***

One of Angie Chuang鈥檚 last news jobs was covering race and ethnicity for The Oregonian. In the early 2000s, it wasn鈥檛 always easy to find answers to questions about race in a mostly white newsroom. Conferences like those put on by the Asian American Journalists Association 鈥渨ere times of revitalization for me,鈥� she said.

When this year鈥檚 conference of the National Association of Black Journalists was disrupted by racist attacks against Kamala Harris, Chuang鈥檚 first thoughts were for the attendees who lost the opportunity to learn from one another and find the support she did as a cub reporter.

鈥淲hat鈥檚 lost in this discussion is the entire event shifted to this focus on Donald Trump and the internal conflict in the organization, and I鈥檓 certain that as a result, journalists and students who went lost out on some of that solidarity,鈥� she said. And it fits a larger pattern of outspoken newsmakers inserting themselves into the news to claim the spotlight.

How can journalism avoid being hijacked by the people it covers?

鈥淚t comes down to context. We need to train reporters to take a breath and not just focus on being the first out there. And I know that鈥檚 really hard, because the rewards for being first and getting those clicks ahead of the crowd are well established.鈥�

鈥淚 can鈥檛 blame the reporters who feel these moments are worth covering, because I feel as conflicted as they do.
Angie Chuang
Associate professor, journalism

***

Agenda setting鈥攖he concept that we take our cues of what鈥檚 important from the news鈥攊s as old an idea as mass media itself, but Chris Vargo is drawing interesting conclusions from studying the practice in the digital age. Worth watching, he and other CMCI researchers said, are countermedia entities, which undermine the depictions of reality found in the mainstream press through hyper-partisan content and the use of mis- and disinformation.

How did we get into these silos, and how do we get out?

鈥淭he absence of traditional gatekeepers has helped people create identities around the issues they choose to believe in. Real-world cues do tell us a little about what we find important鈥攁 lot of people had to get COVID to know it was bad鈥攂ut we now choose media in order to form a community. The ability to self-select what you want to listen to and believe in is a terrifying story, because selecting media based on what makes us feel most comfortable, that tells us what we want to hear, flies in the face of actual news reporting and journalistic integrity.鈥�

鈥淚 do worry about our institutions. I don鈥檛 like that a majority of Americans don鈥檛 trust CNN.

Chris Vargo
Associate professor, advertising,
public relations and media design

***

Her research into deepfakes has validated what Sandra Ristovska has known for a long time: For as long as we鈥檝e had visual technologies, we鈥檝e had the ability to manipulate them.

Seeing pornographic images of Taylor Swift on social media or getting robocalls from Joe Biden telling voters to stay home鈥攃ontent created by generative artificial intelligence鈥攊s a reminder that the scale of the problem is unprecedented. But Ristovska鈥檚 work has found examples of fake photos from the dawn of the 20th century supposedly showing, for example, damage from catastrophic tornadoes that never happened.

Ristovska grew up amid the Yugoslav Wars; her interest in becoming a documentary filmmaker was in part shaped by seeing how photos and videos from the brutal fighting and genocide were manipulated for political and legal means. It taught her to be a skeptic when it comes to what she sees shared online.

鈥淪o, you see the Taylor Swift video鈥攊t seems out of character for her public persona. Or the president鈥攚hy would he say something like that?鈥� she said. 鈥淚nstead of just hitting the share button, we should train ourselves to go online and fact check it鈥攖o be more engaged.鈥�

Even when we believe something is fake, if it aligns with our worldview, we are likely to accept it as reality. Knowing that, how do we combat deepfakes?

鈥淲e need to go old school. We鈥檝e lost sight of the collective good, and you solve that by building opportunities to come together as communities and have discussions. We鈥檙e gentler and more tolerant of each other when we鈥檙e face-to-face. This has always been true, but it鈥檚 becoming even more true today, because we have more incentives to be isolated than ever.鈥�

***

Early scholarly works waxed poetic on the internet鈥檚 potential, through its ability to connect people and share information, to defeat autocracy. But, Nathan Schneider has argued, the internet is actually organized as a series of little autocracies鈥攚here users are subject to the whims of moderators and whoever owns the servers鈥攅ffectively meaning you must work against the defaults to be truly democratic. He suggests living with these systems is contributing to the global rise of authoritarianism. In a new book, Governable Spaces, Schneider calls for redesigning social media with everyday democracy in mind.

If the internet enables autocracy, what can we do to fix it?

鈥淲e could design our networks for collective ownership, rather than the assumption that every service is a top-down fiefdom. And we could think about democracy as a tool for solving problems, like conflict among users. Polarizing outcomes, like so-called cancel culture, emerge because people don鈥檛 have better options for addressing harm. A democratic society needs public squares designed for democratic processes and practices.鈥�

***

It may be derided as dull, but the public meeting is a bedrock of American democracy. It has also changed drastically as fringe groups have seized these spaces to give misinformation a megaphone, ban books and take up other undemocratic causes. Leah Sprain researches how specific communication practices facilitate and inhibit democratic action. She works as a facilitator with several groups, including the League of Women Voters and Restore the Balance, to ensure events like candidate forums embrace difficult issues while remaining nonpartisan.

What鈥檚 a story we鈥檙e not telling about voters ahead of the election?

鈥淲e should be looking more at college towns, because town-gown divides are real and long-standing. There鈥檚 a politics of resentment even in a place like Boulder, where you have people who say, 鈥榃e know so much about these issues, we shouldn鈥檛 let students vote on them鈥欌€攖o the point where providing pizza to encourage voter turnout becomes this major controversy. Giving young people access to be involved, making them feel empowered to make a difference and be heard鈥攖hese are good things.鈥�

***

Toby Hopp studies the news media and digital content providers with an eye to how our interactions with media shape conversations in the public sphere. Much of that is changing as trust and engagement with mainstream news sources declines. He鈥檚 studied whether showing critical-thinking prompts alongside shared posts鈥攔equiring users to consider the messages as well as the structure of the platform itself鈥攎ay be better than relying on top-down content moderation from tech companies.

Ultimately, the existing business model of the big social media companies鈥攑ackaging users to be sold to advertisers鈥攎ay be the most limiting feature when it comes to reform. Hopp said he doubts a business the size of Meta can pivot from its model.

How does social media rehabilitate itself to become more trusted? Can it?

鈥淪ocial media platforms are driven by monopolistic impulses, and there鈥檚 not a lot of effort put into changing established strategies when you鈥檙e the only business in town. The development of new platforms might offer a wider breadth of platform choice鈥攚hich might limit the spread of misinformation on a Facebook or Twitter due to the diminished reach of any single platform.鈥�

***

Images have always required us to be more engaged. Now, with the speed of disinformation, we need to do a little more work.鈥�

Sandra Ristovska
Assistant professor, media studies

抖阴旅行射 News Corps was created to simulate a real-world newsroom that allows journalism students to do the kind of long-form, investigative pieces that are in such short supply at a time of social media hot takes and pundits trading talking points.

鈥淚 thought we should design the course you鈥檇 most want to take if you were a journalism major,鈥� said Chuck Plunkett, director of the capstone course and an experienced reporter. Having a mandate to do investigative journalism 鈥渕eans we can challenge our students to dig in and do meaningful work, to expose them to other kinds of people or ideas that aren鈥檛 on their radar.鈥�

Over the course of a semester, the students work under the guidance of reporters and editors at partner media companies to produce long-form multimedia stories that are shared on the News Corps website and, often, are picked up by those same publications, giving the students invaluable clips for their job searches while supporting resource-strapped newsrooms.

With the news business facing such a challenging future, both economically and politically, why should students study journalism?

鈥淓ven before the great contraction of news, the figure I had in my mind was five years after students graduate, maybe 25 percent of them were still in professional newsrooms. But journalism is a tremendous major because you learn to think critically, research deeply and efficiently, interact with other people, process enormous amounts of information, and have excellent communication skills. Every profession needs people with those skills.鈥�

Where do we go from here? CMCI experts share their perspectives on journalism, advertising, data science, communication and more in an era of democratic backsliding.

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Questions about A.I.? Let鈥檚 Chat

Anonymous — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 00:16:06 +0000

Questions about A.I.? Let鈥檚 Chat Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 10/29/2023 - 18:16

By Joe Arney

When tools like ChatGPT entered the mainstream last winter, it was a moment of reckoning for professionals in every industry. Suddenly, the artificial intelligence revolution was a lot more real than most had imagined. Were we at the dawn of an era where professional communicators were about to become extinct?

Almost a year after ChatGPT鈥檚 debut, we鈥檙e still here鈥攂ut still curious about how to be effective communicators, creators and storytellers in this brave new world. To examine what role CMCI plays in ensuring students graduate prepared to lead in a world where these tools are perhaps more widely used than understood, we invited Kai Larsen, associate professor of information systems at 抖阴旅行射鈥檚 Leeds School of Business and a courtesy faculty member in CMCI, to moderate a discussion with associate professors Casey Fiesler, of information science, and Rick Stevens, of media studies, about the ethical and practical uses of A.I. and the value of new鈥攁nd old鈥攕kills in a fast-changing workplace.

This conversation was edited for length and clarity.

"A.I. can seem like magic, and if it seems like magic, you don鈥檛 understand what it can do or not do.鈥�
颅鈥擟asey Fiesler

Faculty in conversation

Kai R. Larsen is an associate professor of information systems at the Leeds School of Business. He is an expert in machine learning and natural language processing whose thought leadership has been featured in the most influential academic journals.

Casey Fiesler is associate chair for graduate studies in information science. She shares her insights in technology ethics, internet law and policy, and online communities both in scholarly journals and in the public, especially through social media. She is a courtesy faculty member in the Department of Computer Science.

Rick Stevens is associate dean of undergraduate education at CMCI. His work explores ideological formation and media dissemination, including how technology infrastructure affects the delivery of messages, communication technology policy, and how media and technology platforms are changing public discourse.

Larsen: It鈥檚 exciting to be here with both of you to talk a bit about A.I. Maybe to get us started, I can ask you to tell us a little about how you see the landscape today.

Fiesler: I think A.I. has become a term that is so broadly used that it barely has any meaning anymore. A lot of the conversation right now is around generative A.I., particularly large language models like ChatGPT. But I do see a need for some precision here, because there are other uses of A.I. that we see everywhere. It鈥檚 a recommender system deciding what you see next on Facebook, it鈥檚 a machine learning algorithm, it鈥檚 doing all kinds of decision-making in your life.

Stevens: I think it鈥檚 important to talk about which tools we鈥檙e discussing in an individual moment. In our program, we see a lot of students using software like ChatGPT to write research papers. We allow some of that for very specific reasons, but we also are trying to get students to think about what this software is good at and not good at, because usually their literacy about it is not very good.

Larsen: Let鈥檚 talk about that some more, especially with a focus on generative A.I., whether large language models or image creation-type A.I. What should we be teaching, and how should we be teaching it, to prepare our students for work environments where A.I. proficiency will be required?

Stevens: What we鈥檙e trying to do when we use A.I. is to have students understand what those tools are doing, because they already have the literacy to write, to research and analyze content themselves. They鈥檙e just expanding their capacity or their efficiency in doing certain tasks, not replacing their command of text or research.

Fiesler: There鈥檚 also that understanding of the limitations of these tools. A.I. can seem like magic, and if it seems like magic, you don鈥檛 understand what it can do or not do. This is an intense simplification, but ChatGPT is closer to being a fancy autocomplete than it is a search engine. It鈥檚 just a statistical probability of what word comes next. And if you know that, then you don鈥檛 necessarily expect it to always be correct or always be better at a task than a human.

Stevens: Say a student is writing a research paper and is engaged in a particular set of research literature鈥攊s the A.I. drawing from the most recent publications, or the most cited? How does peer review fit into a model of chat generation? These are the kinds of questions that really tell us these tools aren鈥檛 as good as what students sometimes think.

Larsen: We鈥檙e talking a lot about technology literacy here, but are there any other aspects of literacy you think are especially pertinent when it comes to A.I. models?

Fiesler: There鈥檚 also information literacy, which is incredibly important when you are getting information you cannot source. If you search for something on Google, you have a source for that information that you can evaluate, whereas if I ask a question in ChatGPT, I have to fact-check that answer independently.

Stevens: I鈥檓 glad you said that, because in class, if a student has a research project, they can declare they鈥檒l use A.I. to assist them, but they get a different rubric for grading purposes. If they use assistance to more quickly build their argument, they must have enough command of the literature to know when that tool generates a mistake.

Fiesler: And educators have to have an understanding of how these tools work, as well. Would you stop your students from using spell check? Of course not鈥攗nless they鈥檙e taking a spelling test. The challenge is that sometimes it鈥檚 a spelling test, and sometimes it鈥檚 not. It鈥檚 up to educators to figure out when something is a spelling test, and clearly articulate that to the students鈥攁s well as the value of what they鈥檙e learning, and why I鈥檓 teaching you to spell before letting you use spell check.

Expanded Remarks

Star Wars: The Frog Awakens

Larsen: That鈥檚 an interesting thought. What about specific skills like critical thinking, collaboration, communication and creativity? How will we change the way we teach those concepts as a result of A.I.?

Fiesler: I think critique and collaboration become even more important. ChatGPT is very good at emulating creativity. If you ask it to write a fan fiction where Kermit the Frog is in Star Wars, it will do that. And the fact that it can do that is pretty cool, but it鈥檚 not good, it tends to be pretty boring. Charlie Brooker said he had ChaptGPT write an episode of Black Mirror, and of course it was bad鈥攊t鈥檚 just a jumble of tropes. The more we play with these systems, the more you come to realize how important human creativity is.

Stevens: You know, machine learning hasn鈥檛 historically been pointed at creativity鈥攖he idea is to have a predictable and consistent set of responses. But we鈥檙e trying to teach our students to develop their own voice and their own individuality, and that is never going to be something this version of tools will be good at emulating. Watching students fail because they think technology offers a shortcut can be a literacy opportunity. It lets you ask the student, are you just trying to get software to get you through this class鈥攐r are you learning how to write so that you can express yourself and be heard from among all the people being captured in the algorithm?

Larsen: It鈥檚 interesting listening to you both talk about creativity in the age of A.I. Can you elaborate? I鈥檓 especially interested in this historical view that creativity is one of the things that A.I. would never get right, which might be a little less true today than it was a year ago.

Fiesler: Well, I think it depends on your definition of creativity. I think A.I. is certainly excellent at emulating creativity, at least, like Kermit and Star Wars, and the things A.I. art generators can do. One of the things art generators do very well is giving me an image in the style of this artist. The output is amazing. Is that creative? Not really, in my opinion. But there are ways you could use it where it would be good at generating output that, if created by a human, people would see as creative.

Stevens: We have courses in which students work on a new media franchise pitch, which includes writing, comic book imagery, animation, art鈥攖hey鈥檙e pitching a transmedia output, so it鈥檚 going to have multiple modes. You could waste two semesters teaching a strong writer how to draw鈥攚hich may never happen鈥攐r, we can say, let鈥檚 use software to generate the image you think matches the text you鈥檙e pitching. That鈥檚 something we want students to think about鈥攚hen do they need to be creative, and when do they need to say, I鈥檝e got four hours to produce something, and if this helps my group understand our project, I don鈥檛 have to spend those four hours drawing.

"It鈥檚 not that A.I. brings new problems to the table, but it can absolutely exacerbate existing problems to new heights.鈥�
鈥擱ick Stevens

Risky Business

Larsen: What about media and journalism? Do we risk damaging our reputation or credibility when we bring these tools into the news?

Stevens: Absolutely. The first time a major publication puts out a story that gets fact checked incorrectly because someone did not check the A.I. output, that is going to damage not just that publication, but the whole industry. But we鈥檙e already seeing that damage coming from other technological innovations鈥攖his is just one among many.

Fiesler: I think misinformation and disinformation are the most obvious kinds of problems here. We鈥檝e already had examples of deepfakes that journalists have covered as real, and so journalists need to be exceptionally careful about the sources of images and information they report on.

Stevens: It鈥檚 not that A.I. brings new problems to the table, but it can absolutely exacerbate existing problems to new heights if we鈥檙e not careful on what the checks and balances are.

Larsen: How about beyond the news? What are some significant trends communicators and media professionals should be keeping an eye out for?

Stevens: We need to train people to be more critical at looking not just where content comes from, but how it鈥檚 generated along certain biases. We can get a chatbot to emulate a conversation, but that doesn鈥檛 mean it can identify racist tropes that we鈥檙e trying to push out of our media system. A lot of what we do, critically, is to push back against the mainstream, to try to change our culture for the better. I鈥檓 not sure that algorithms drawing from the culture that we鈥檙e trying to change are going to have the same values in them to change anything.

Expanded Remarks

Capitalism and computational power

Larsen: What鈥檚 a big question we鈥檙e not asking about A.I. and our work?

Stevens: I think the biggest question is, what does A.I. free us up to do that we haven鈥檛 been able to do before?

Fiesler: Agreed. Let鈥檚 say A.I. and automation really could replace a lot of jobs. So because of ChatGPT, you now need two copywriters to do the job of four copywriters. You could fire two copywriters, but another option is, your four copywriters work 20 hours a week instead of 40 and still get paid the same. Because it鈥檚 not like you鈥檙e making less money, or you put resources into building your own A.I. If this technology can replace some things we鈥檙e doing, that shouldn鈥檛 mean we don鈥檛 have jobs, it should just mean we have to work less.

Stevens: It鈥檚 actually in cultural producers鈥� interest for something like this to happen. There鈥檚 this assumption that, oh, we can do the work of four people with two people now, so let鈥檚 fire two of them. Well, better rested, more thoughtful workers can produce better, more thoughtful content. The content we create forms our social identity, so the more thoughtful we are, the better a society we鈥檙e going to have, because we鈥檝e inspired people to think about their world differently.

Larsen: I have to tell you both, I鈥檓 very impressed with your level of optimism when it comes to A.I. Why don鈥檛 we end on an optimistic note, as well? What鈥檚 something you feel communicators should be excited about from the dawn of this new age of work?

Stevens: One thing communicators should be excited about is that these tools exist because the process of communication is valuable. Our ability to produce more culture is not a bad thing, we just want it to have a higher fidelity and have the values we want to have, and I think those are questions that thoughtful communicators can bring to the table and help shape.

Fiesler: I agree with that, as well. Young people in college are some of the most well positioned to make an impact on how this technology is going to influence our future, with the way decisions are made around how it鈥檚 actually going to change our lives and industries. There are ways in which some things that are happening are scary, but it鈥檚 an interesting time to be on the ground floor.

For A.I. to be useful, it needs to grow alongside communicators鈥攏ot replace them. CMCI experts share their vision for a workplace with ChatGPT and other tools.

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The Real People Behind the News

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Nov 2022 05:52:19 +0000

The Real People Behind the News Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 11/23/2022 - 22:52

By Malinda Miller (Engl, Jour鈥�92; MJour鈥�98)

How do journalists connect with audiences? What are the biggest challenges they face? Has social media changed how they report a story?

As news media have fundamentally changed over the years, the Pew Research Center has regularly tracked audience media consumption and gauged the public鈥檚 perceptions of the industry. But in an effort to 鈥渃apture the other side of the story,鈥� last spring it surveyed almost 12,000 journalists, said Amy Mitchell, the center鈥檚 director of journalism research, in a Q&A.

The Pew study found that 77% of journalists surveyed would choose their career again but identified several areas of concern, including political polarization and the impact of social media. Researchers also found that journalists think the pandemic has permanently changed the news industry.

CMCI Dean Lori Bergen had many of the same questions. She talked with three alumni from across the country鈥擩ohn Branch (MJour鈥�89), Jackie Forti茅r (MJour鈥�13) and Vignesh Ramachandran (Jour鈥�11)鈥攐ver Zoom last summer about their day-to-day experiences as journalists.

Lori Bergen, PhD, is the founding dean of CMCI and currently on the boards of the Poynter Institute, Colorado Public Radio and the Colorado Press Association. Before joining academia, Bergen worked for several years as a journalist. She has co-authored several books, most recently News for US: Citizen-Centered Journalism.

John Branch (MJour鈥�89) joined The New York Times in 2005 as a sports reporter. He won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in 2013 for 鈥淪now Fall,鈥� a multimedia story about a deadly avalanche in Washington State, and was a finalist for the prize in 2012. He is working on several months long multimedia projects. @JohnBranchNYT

Jackie Forti茅r (MJour鈥�13) is the senior health reporter for KPCC and LAist.com in Southern California and has also worked in public radio in Oklahoma and Colorado. She has won two regional Edward R. Murrow awards in California and one in Oklahoma. She works on quick-turn stories and hopes at some point to not just be reporting on infectious diseases. @jackiefortier

Vignesh Ramachandran (Jour鈥�11) is a multiplatform editor for The Washington Post and co-founder of the Red, White and Brown Media newsletter on Substack, which focuses on South Asian American stories and community engagement. Previously, he worked at the PBS NewsHour, ProPublica, the Stanford Computational Journalism Lab and NBC News Digital. @VigneshR

Bergen: As we鈥檝e been talking, it鈥檚 great to hear the differences in the work that each of you are doing. There鈥檚 this common thread of storytelling and the way each of you have applied your interests and skill sets in ways of connecting. I鈥檓 curious, what are some ways you engage with your audience?

Ramachandran: The last two years the number of in-person interviews has dramatically dwindled. A lot of it has been sourcing engagement through social networks. This year I鈥檝e been experimenting with the audio function on Twitter to host conversations and see what issues people want to talk about. Some of the discussions ended up being more substantive and more engaging than I had expected, so it鈥檚 been a good experiment so far.

鈥淚 just want people to remember, there are real people behind this news.
鈥擩ohn Branch

Branch: Most of my connections are still pretty traditional with readers. It鈥檚 the usual social media and reader comment kind of channels. I鈥檒l give you an interesting quick story, though. We did a big multimedia piece on a story I wrote about 18 months ago about the threat to some of the iconic tree species鈥攖he redwoods, the sequoias, the Joshua trees in California. A musical director at a pretty big concert hall here in California was moved by it and was trying to figure out how to connect arts to climate change. He commissioned several composers to write pieces off of that story. They鈥檒l be performing unique and original works based off something I wrote, which has never happened to me before.

Bergen: Amazing. Whoever thought you鈥檇 be the muse to an orchestral performance? Jackie, has social media changed how you engage with your audiences?

Forti茅r: I鈥檝e never not had social media as a journalist, so it鈥檚 not that different than what I was doing before. (The pandemic) has meant a lot of over-the-phone interviews that I would really have preferred not to do over the phone, but that鈥檚 just the way it had to happen. It鈥檚 been really difficult to have patients, family members, nurses, doctors crying to you on the phone, talking about how difficult it鈥檚 been treating people or going through COVID, and you鈥檙e not there in person. A lot of them didn鈥檛 want to have video on while we were talking. I think that has been the hardest part of the pandemic for me.

Bergen: That鈥檚 interesting. I brought my generational perspective to this because I wanted to delve into how social media may have changed some of your work, but you鈥檙e reminding me that this has always been part of your reporting.

Forti茅r: I covered the Planned Parenthood shooter in Colorado Springs. None of the institutions were on Twitter so I couldn鈥檛 pull any information from that. I was doing live updates because there was this shooter on the loose in Colorado Springs, and it was when people were traveling. It sounds morose to say, but we鈥檙e going to have another breaking news situation, and so now that institutions are actually putting that information out there, it helps from a journalistic perspective.

Ramachandran: In some ways it鈥檚 broken geographic barriers to reach people around the country or world. But in another sense, particularly when trying to reach marginalized communities, are we self-selecting the sorts of people who would want to speak out anyway or who are comfortable with engaging on those platforms?

When I was doing a lot of reporting on the pandemic spike in anti-Asian hate crimes and incidents, there were a lot of folks on the forefront talking about the issue on social platforms. But when talking to some of the folks who have been personally impacted by these issues, it鈥檚 trying to build rapport with someone whose child has been stabbed in a parking lot because of a hate crime. Trying to do that interview over Zoom is just a very different dynamic versus really ingraining yourself in the community and trying to understand the story and all its nuances and complexities. I think in some ways (Zoom) is such a useful tool, but in other ways, I think it鈥檚 a means to launch a conversation in a traditional way.

Branch: I think it鈥檚 just a different conversation when you and I are looking at each other, even if it鈥檚 through a camera. But I do worry that media companies will use it as a crutch and not send people out because it鈥檚 too simple and much cheaper to do it this way. I still think the best reporting is face to face, in person, not face to face over a monitor. It鈥檚 a totally different dynamic. I mean, I can see you in your little box right now, but I don鈥檛 know what the environment is around you. There鈥檚 not a whole lot of spontaneity when you and I are talking like this. There鈥檚 no, 鈥淟et鈥檚 just jump in the car and go get coffee somewhere,鈥� or I can鈥檛 see what you have posted on your refrigerator that might elicit a whole line of questions.

Bergen: Good point, John. I鈥檓 curious, what form is most of your content being created in and how is it distributed to audiences?

Forti茅r: Everything I do is multiplatform, from a 20-second spot to a full-fledged feature. If I go out to do a story, it鈥檚 pictures, tweets while I鈥檓 there, video, hopefully, depending on what鈥檚 happened. We create content specifically for TikTok. Usually I鈥檓 trying to find sources, but sometimes just to engage audiences. I kind of feel like the legacy journalists are just kind of catching up, to be honest with you, now that The New York Times and The Washington Post are like, 鈥淥h, audio is a thing.鈥�

Bergen: Well, that sounded like you guys need to respond to that one.

Ramachandran: Honestly, the last 10 years have been everything from print to writing for the web to audio work to video work to data analysis. I think the best editors have always given me the advice to just tell the story in the medium that tells the story best.

Bergen: I love that. It鈥檚 what we try to teach our students, but it always sounds so much better when somebody else says that.

Branch: I鈥檒l say that what has been one of the changes post-鈥淪now Fall鈥� is we have had a lot more conversations about the best way to present the story. Now, it鈥檚 like, what if this is nothing but a photo essay? What if this is actually a big, dynamic graphic? What if it is text? What if it鈥檚 video?

I鈥檓 working on a story now that we hope to make a full-length documentary. Some of my stories they鈥檒l have me read so we can deliver them to podcast and audio audiences.

I think it has kind of exploded the environment and the imagination that we have for what鈥檚 the best way to deliver this to people. It鈥檚 exciting times to be a part of it.

Making a difference

Bergen: Could each of you talk a little bit about your experience with how journalism has made a difference?

Forti茅r: I was the only health journalist in Oklahoma. We had a huge opioid lawsuit against Purdue (Pharma) settled, but Johnson & Johnson was the one that actually went to trial.

The trial happened to be in the town that I lived in, Norman, Oklahoma. I did a bunch of stories leading up to it, and then I just filed and filed and filed with NPR鈥檚 newscast. I was the only reporter that was there every day.

Because I tweeted the whole thing鈥攁nd that was really the only way that people knew it was happening because it wasn鈥檛 being broadcast live鈥擨 had a ton of people following me on Twitter, both for and against opioid companies, which was interesting.

It showed me how important local journalism is because I was there. I had other journalists telling me the only reason they came was because their editor heard what I was doing and thought, 鈥淥h, we better get over there.鈥� Parachuting in has its merits in some cases, but most of the time you need local people who know the ins and outs and the subtleties of what鈥檚 going on.

Bergen: Although my question was, how does journalism have an impact, what you鈥檝e really underscored is, journalists have an impact.

Ramachandran: Before the pandemic, I worked for ProPublica鈥檚 Chicago office. We were local reporters living in the communities that we were reporting on. There were tangible impacts of laws changed. We had colleagues who did investigations on the tax assessment system there; the corrupt assessor who ended up getting voted out the next election; how they were targeting Black and brown communities of Chicago in disproportionate ways; and then how those policies were kind of changed in Chicago.

In my own reporting on Asian American communities, it鈥檚 interesting to see a different sort of impact. I did a few stories on how South Asian Americans have a higher risk of cardiovascular ailments, and I got emails saying, 鈥淗ey, I signed up to get a heart scan,鈥� or, 鈥淚鈥檓 going to be talking to my primary care doctor.鈥�

Branch: One theme I鈥檝e had the last 10 years has been stories about CTE, the chronic brain disease caused by repetitive hits in a lot of sports. I鈥檓 here in Colorado right now, and I just saw a friend the other night who said, 鈥淚 can鈥檛 watch hockey the way I used to anymore, thanks to you. I can鈥檛 watch football the way I used to because of the reporting that you and your colleagues have done.鈥�

You know, anytime you hear somebody talk about political news or sports news or celebrity news, or on global news of some sort, I want to say, 鈥淵ou realize that鈥檚 media, right? You鈥檝e been bashing the media, but you realize everything that you talk about, everything that connects us through conversation is media.鈥�

I just want people to remember, there are real people behind this news.

Moments of joy

Bergen: I鈥檓 just curious, are there moments of joy in your work?

Ramachandran: I think when you tell the stories that you want to tell, tell the stories that impact folks, that kind of stuff is what keeps me going.

Branch: I find joy in small places, like when I鈥檝e written a nice sentence. Most of my joy comes in very private moments: When I鈥檝e received a callback that I鈥檝e been waiting for, or just got off the phone on a really good interview, and I can鈥檛 wait to tell my editor what I鈥檝e just found out.

Forti茅r: I think I find the most joy when I get to take a listener somewhere that they don鈥檛 normally go or hear from someone that they wouldn鈥檛 think to speak to. What I really love about audio is that I can take 20 seconds and let that quote breathe. It has a pacing to it. It鈥檚 very experiential.

Trust and credibility

Bergen: What are the biggest challenges you face as journalists?

Branch: Credibility and maintaining trust with audiences that are as fractured as ever. I work in what鈥檚 derisively called the mainstream media. I worry about how we get that mainstream news to a wide swath of people, across socioeconomic lines, across political lines, across racial divides, so that we鈥檙e all working with a core set of facts. That鈥檚 become trickier and trickier as the years have gone by.

Bergen: And that鈥檚 probably not going to change in the future.

Branch: Our goal at The New York Times is to keep delivering truth as we believe it should be told and hope that people come around, and not try to bend to certain people, not just play to your audience. I think that鈥檚 what the original journalism tenets were鈥攄eliver truth as unbiased as possible and let people absorb it as they absorb it, but don鈥檛 try to steer your news to an audience necessarily. That鈥檚 tricky, because you get into conversations about bias and unintended biases and so on. We鈥檝e been doing it for 170 years. We鈥檒l keep going and hope that more people keep believing what we鈥檙e delivering.

Forti茅r: I would add to that: staying relevant. In order to be consumable by younger audiences, we really need to get more Black and brown people in newsrooms and in positions of power within newsrooms. You know, I can think of one public radio station that has a woman as the CEO or president off the top of my head. So, we talk about diversity all the time. We talk about diversity in sources, but we really need more diversity
in journalism.

Ramachandran: I feel like earlier in my career, I would鈥檝e said it鈥檚 the economics of journalism, which I think is definitely a concern, but it feels like we鈥檙e going to figure that out. But to John鈥檚 point, I鈥檓 personally very concerned鈥攁nd I feel like it鈥檚 a challenge for journalism鈥攖his credibility and trust question. I think that鈥檚 just the biggest thing we鈥檙e going to be grappling with for many years.

Forti茅r: I will say having been a reporter in Oklahoma at a public radio station where people don鈥檛 really like journalists, that as I consistently did accurate, solid reporting, I got respect. It took a little while, but as I kept doing the good work, people realized that I wasn鈥檛 biased.

Bergen: Just a good reminder how much relationship building can have an impact on this.

Branch: To what Jackie said, that鈥檚 my mission, just keep doing the good work. I don鈥檛 know what else we can do.

CMCI Dean Lori Bergen talked with three alumni from across the country鈥擩ohn Branch (MJour鈥�89), Jackie Forti茅r (MJour鈥�13) and Vignesh Ramachandran (Jour鈥�11)鈥攐ver Zoom last summer about their day-to-day experiences as journalists.

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We Are the Stories We Tell

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Nov 2021 22:28:06 +0000

We Are the Stories We Tell Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 11/23/2021 - 15:28

鈥淭he vocabularies we speak and the stories we tell create the world we inhabit.
鈥擫isa Flores

By Stephanie Cook (MJour鈥�18)

Lisa Flores has built her career focusing on issues that many people prefer to avoid.

As a professor of communication, she examines narratives of privilege and disadvantage, particularly as they play out in public discourse around questions of race, gender, nation and labor. In many cases, as with her work on Mexican immigration, she engages with issues that are both complex and deeply personal.

鈥淚 am the U.S.-born child of migrants, and I often say my mother came into this country creatively. My father doesn鈥檛 know on which side of the border he was born,鈥� she says. 鈥淪o much of what I do is really about this recognition of my privilege, given to me by the choices my parents made to raise us in very particular ways, and the knowledge that my grandmother lived her entire life with the fear of deportability.鈥�

What propels this challenging work, Flores says, is her guiding rhetorical argument.

鈥淎 lot of times, grad students and undergrads will ask me, 鈥楬ow do I maintain hope?鈥� Like, how do I continue to do this work, given how much of what I study is really about the dehumanization of different populations?鈥� she says. 鈥淎nd my answer always comes back to my fundamental rhetorical belief, which is that rhetoric is constitutive... the vocabularies we speak and the stories we tell create the world we inhabit.鈥�

Over the summer, Flores moderated a discussion about this concept with her CMCI colleagues Angie Chuang, an associate professor of journalism, and Harsha Gangadharbatla, an associate professor of advertising. While each considered the claim from a unique personal and professional perspective, they agreed that, ultimately, our stories shape our world.

We are the stories we grow up with

鈥淚t was this sort of idea that, no matter how assimilated you are, no matter how unaccented your speech is, your appearance and way of being in the world can always define who you are.
鈥擜ngie Chuang

Like Flores, Chuang examines issues of race, identity and representation. An award-winning reporter, she spent 13 years at newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, The Hartford Courant and The Oregonian, where she launched one of the first regional newspaper beats on race and ethnicity issues and covered stories from Afghanistan to Vietnam to the post-Katrina Gulf Coast.

Chuang is a second-generation Chinese American raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her parents came to the U.S. in the 1960s 鈥渄uring the push for educated, East Asian American immigrants to join the ranks of science and engineering,鈥� she says. The side effect, she adds, was a pervasive model minority stereotype that still lingers in the Asian American community.

鈥淭his is one that I lived with growing up, and in spite of its name and apparently positive perception, it鈥檚 very damaging,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t really put my parents in a box and made them very fearful to be expressive or activist or speak out on their own behalf, because they were essentially brought here to be docile, cooperative Americans who would forward certain missions of the government.鈥�

Unlike their parents, Chuang says, the second generation of this migration developed a sharp activist streak, ignited by events like the 1982 killing of Vincent Chin, a Chinese American autoworker living in Detroit who was beaten to death by two white men who mistook him for being Japanese.

鈥淚t was this sort of idea that, no matter how assimilated you are, no matter how unaccented your speech is, your appearance and way of being in the world can always define who you are,鈥� Chuang says. 鈥淎nd you have to own that and accept that as part of what race in America is, for better and worse. I think a lot of that drove me to become a professional journalist.鈥�

Flores describes a similar narrative among the Mexican American community.

鈥淚 write a lot about Mexican deportability and that Mexicans in the U.S.鈥撯€搑egardless of our residency, our country of birth, and in my case, regardless of the hyper-whiteness of my body鈥撯€搘e all still live in a narrative of deportability that marks us all with a sense of criminality, a sense of foreignness. And we have to live with that,鈥� she says.

We are the stories we pay for

鈥淚 think a lot of the hurdles that I see are at the systemic level.鈥�
鈥擧arsha Gangadharbatla

Unlike Flores and Chuang, who bring a second-generation perspective, Gangadharbatla is a first-generation immigrant from India, where, in his other life, as he puts it, he worked as a software programmer with a bachelor鈥檚 degree in electrical engineering. He came to the U.S. to study advertising, which he has taught for nearly two decades. His research in the field, on everything from 鈥渄advertising鈥� to 鈥渂iohacking,鈥� explores the intersection of technology, business and communication.

Recently, the American Academy of Advertising elected Gangadharbatla as president, making him the first Indian-born person to hold the role in the organization鈥檚 63-year history. Even as his own career milestones push the industry forward, certain 鈥渆nvironmental shackles鈥� have limited the type of research Gangadharbatla feels he can prioritize.

鈥淭o an extent, my research has been a product of those environmental factors鈥撯€揵eing an immigrant and wanting to or having to do things that would kind of progress and move me toward permanent residency and citizenship. So, that involved doing research that is more on the applied side, on the business side, and more 鈥榤arketable,鈥欌€� he says.

At heart, Gangadharbatla says, he sees the world as a political economist interested in the structural underpinnings that uphold various industries and practices.

鈥淚 think a lot of the hurdles that I see are at the systemic level,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he advertising industry operates within a capitalistic economic system, right? So any or all changes have to happen within that box.鈥�

In such a confined 鈥榖ox,鈥� he adds, 鈥渂usinesses are forced to follow the path of unrestrained growth and higher profits, and leave social and environmental activism to nonprofit organizations.鈥�

鈥淭hat, I think, is one of the biggest challenges or hurdles that I face in terms of even my own research or talking about different things鈥撯€揵ecause questioning the fundamental assumptions is not even a dialogue or a conversation in the field itself,鈥� he says. 鈥淎nd the idea of unlimited growth, where a business would bring in profits that are more than the last year, and then they would keep doing this in perpetuity, is just not a sustainable, logical or rational model because everything we produce and consume comes from our planet with limited resources.鈥�

Despite the idea that journalism is less capitalistically inclined, a similar business model has gutted the newspaper industry, Chuang says, leaving many cities without a single daily paper.

鈥淭hat was all predicated on corporate consolidation and a model in which shareholders believed that newspapers had to be continually more and more profitable, which is just not realistic,鈥� she says. 鈥淪o now we鈥檙e in this situation where we have news deserts, and people who produce local news are hardly making any money and don鈥檛 have a sustainable career path.鈥�

We are the stories we reimagine

鈥淐hange happens incredibly slowly鈥�
unless it happens very quickly.
鈥擫isa Flores

When it comes to national narratives, Flores adds, the forcefield of American capitalism also molds messaging about who is allowed entry into the U.S. and under what circumstances.

鈥淭he capitalism piece is crucial to me,鈥� she says. 鈥淭he United States loves Mexicans who are willing to stay in the fields and pick the crops as long as they鈥檙e willing to stay in their place. We鈥撯€搕he broad we鈥撯€揳re all about welcoming people, as long as they do what they鈥檙e supposed to do.鈥�

The same economic structures and national narratives that constrict and corrupt our society鈥檚 sense of self may also hold the key to meaningful change, the scholars say.

鈥淐hange happens incredibly slowly鈥撯€搖nless it happens very quickly,鈥� Flores says. 鈥淚 tell undergrads on the first day of Rhetorical Criticism, we didn鈥檛 always carry water bottles and we didn鈥檛 actually buckle our seatbelts. . . . But we had advertising campaigns and consistent types of messaging, and now I think most people do buckle their seatbelts.鈥�

For the advertising industry, Gangadharbatla says, 鈥渞epresentations and who has a seat at the table matters.鈥�

To tell better and broader stories, he says, the industry needs 鈥渕ore women in leadership roles like CEOs and creative directors, and more people of color making those ads, meaning the stories are being written and told differently than from the lens of someone who would do it otherwise.鈥�

In journalism, Chuang says, recent events have brought the industry to a tipping point, but the response has made her hopeful.

鈥淚 think journalism itself as an institution is at this inflection point, and some would call it a crisis point, but I think it鈥檚 actually sort of exciting,鈥� she says. 鈥淲e鈥檙e reevaluating things like journalistic objectivity. We鈥檙e reevaluating how and whether certain constituencies get a voice as journalists, as people whose stories get told, or as people who observe the stories. . . . I don鈥檛 think journalism will be the same thing that it was and I鈥檓 excited.鈥�

CMCI faculty Lisa Flores, Angie Chuang and Harsha Gangadharbatla remark on how stories鈥攖hose we tell, pay for and reimagine鈥攊ntersect with our identities and industries.

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Jailed Without Justice

Anonymous — Thu, 23 May 2019 22:54:27 +0000

Jailed Without Justice Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 05/23/2019 - 16:54

In Conversation:

Jailed without Justice

By Malinda Miller (Engl, Jour鈥�92; MJour鈥�98) and Chuck Plunkett

Al Nakkula Award for Police Reporting

Each spring since 1991, the Department of Journalism at the College of Media, Communication and Information and the Denver Press Club have honored the late Al Nakkula, a 46-year veteran of the Rocky Mountain News whose tenacity made him a legendary police reporter. Nakkula died in 1990.

The award is for work produced by a reporter or reporting team in print and/or online platforms in the United States the previous year.

The first-place prize is $2,000, and the winner is invited to speak to classes and accept the award at the annual Denver Press Club鈥檚 Damon Runyon dinner.

View a full listing of past winners and entry guidelines.

2019 | Gary Harki 鈥淛ailed in Crisis鈥�
The Virginian-Pilot
2018 | Topher Sanders and Ben Conarck 鈥淲alking While Black鈥�
ProPublica, Florida Times Union
2017 | Jennifer Bjorhus and Kelly Smith 鈥淎 Cry for Help鈥�
Minneapolis Star Tribune
2016 | Ken Armstrong, T. Christian Miller 鈥淎n Unbelievable Story of Rape鈥�
The Marshall Project, ProPublica
2015 | Brad Heath 鈥淔ugitives Next Door鈥�
USA Today
2014 | Megan O鈥橫atz and John Maines 鈥淐ops, Cash, Cocaine鈥�
South Florida Sun Sentinel
2013 | Ryan Gabrielson 鈥淏roken Shield鈥�
Center for Investigative Reporting鈥檚 California Watch
2012 | Gina Barton 鈥淏oth Sides of the Law鈥�
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
2011 | Cris Barrish 鈥淒r. Earl Bradley Sex Abuse Case鈥�
The News Journal in Wilmington, Delaware
2010 | Mark Puente 鈥淯ndue Force鈥�
The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio

In 2015, 24-year-old Jamycheal Mitchell鈥攚ho had schizophrenia and bipolar disorder鈥攕tole a Zebra cake and Mountain Dew from a convenience store in Norfolk, Virginia. Police arrested him on April 22, 2015, and about four months later, on August 19, he was found dead in his jail cell.

The case brought up a lot of questions for reporter Gary Harki, who covered it for The Virginian-Pilot and won the 2018 Al Nakkula Award for Police Reporting, co-sponsored by CMCI鈥檚 Department of Journalism and the Denver Press Club.

As he learned more about Mitchell鈥檚 case, Harki was left with as many questions as answers.

鈥淲hy was this guy in jail for so long? He wouldn鈥檛 have gotten that much time had he been tried and convicted,鈥� he wondered. 鈥淚t was that small of a case, but he was caught in this criminal justice system that is not prepared to handle people that have his type of illness.鈥�

Harki decided to look for similar cases, both locally and nationally. To his surprise, he found dozens of other cases throughout the country that were just as troubling. His attempt to build a more comprehensive investigation revealed another issue: No agencies or individuals collected the information necessary to document the extent of the problem.

After some urging by his editor, Harki applied for, and was awarded, the O鈥橞rien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism at Marquette University. The opportunity allowed him to spend the 2017鈥�18 school year working with Marquette students to further his study. With Harki鈥檚 guidance, the team built a database to track 404 deaths of people with mental illness in jails across the country since 2010. According to their reporting, at least 11% of people with mental illnesses who died in jails had family or friends who warned the jails about their condition.

Based on these findings, Harki published 鈥淛ailed in Crisis,鈥� a series illuminating the deaths of mentally ill people in jails throughout the country鈥攐ften under horrific and preventable circumstances. His reporting led to a U.S. Justice Department investigation into how the Virginia jail was treating inmates, especially those with mental illness.

鈥淗arki鈥檚 reporting discovered highly disturbing trends,鈥� says 抖阴旅行射 News Corps Director Chuck Plunkett, who oversaw the 2018 Nakkula award selection process and discussed the investigative series with Harki and Rebecca Carballo, a Charleston Gazette-Mail reporter who helped build the database while she was a Marquette student. 鈥淭oo often, those being held against their will for lack of appropriate beds in clinical settings are subjected to inhuman treatment.鈥�

Plunkett: We鈥檝e seen horror stories for decades about problems that result when people suffering from mental illness are housed in jails, when what they need is treatment at a mental health facility. Why has it been so hard to find useful data about what happens when those jail stays go wrong?

Harki: I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that nobody collects the data. The federal government doesn鈥檛 track it, and the states don鈥檛 really track it. The Bureau of Justice Statistics tracks things through a death-in-custody report, but they have never really tried to track what somebody鈥檚 medical history was, which mental illness would be a part of.

I think it鈥檚 frustrating to a certain degree to sheriffs, too, but it鈥檚 also part of a larger problem of criminal justice data in general, which is that there鈥檚 all these questions out there鈥攑olice shootings, different things with jails and prisons and isolation鈥攁nd none of it is tracked very well. Part of it is there鈥檚 just not a lot of will from jailers or communities to track the data because then you might have to deal with a problem.

Plunkett: That might be the better way to fine-tune it. Is there some kind of institutional bias in these entities that鈥檚 just too embarrassing or too much trouble or too many potential pitfalls?

Harki: I think a lot of it comes down to, one, it is work to try and track this stuff, and two, a lot of the time the data that gets collected is with the federal government, where you鈥檝e got a carrot and a stick. It鈥檚 like, 鈥榃e might withhold funding from you if you don鈥檛 provide us with information.鈥� That鈥檚 how the uniform crime report data gets collected. That鈥檚 never been the case with this jail data, and it鈥檚 also a lot more decentralized.

Carballo: No one really seems to have the data looking at why people are dying in jails. A lot of states had it where they tracked jail deaths, and they tracked how many mentally ill people were in jail, but they didn鈥檛 track how many mentally ill people died in jail. And some of the states had data where they could have figured it out, but their open record laws would say, 鈥榃ell, that would require us to create a record and we don鈥檛 have to create a record for you,鈥� so they don鈥檛 give you the data. So some states actually do have the capability to figure it out, but that鈥檚 time, effort and money.

Plunkett: This was quite an ambitious project. I鈥檇 like to hear your thoughts on a state newspaper uncovering social injustices across the country.

Harki: It was a tricky thing to do a national story at a local paper, but I had written about this issue since 2015. It just seemed like, look, here it is and it鈥檚 a national story. We need to write it because it鈥檚 not just happening here in Norfolk, Virginia. It鈥檚 happening all over the country.

Once I got the O鈥橞rien Fellowship for Public Service Journalism from Marquette, the question was, 鈥榃hat do we do with this issue? How do we go at this again?鈥� It was almost like a movie or something. We just needed to pull the camera back and look at it through a broader lens. My editors were thankfully on board from the beginning, saying, 鈥楲et鈥檚 create the database and let鈥檚 do the story. We think we have the knowledge to do it and the right location to do it because of Mitchell.鈥� And that鈥檚 what happened.

Plunkett: Let鈥檚 talk about the role that data journalism played in your work. How should newsrooms think about equipping their journalists with these skills? Not every beat accommodates the time and resources for this kind of work, but what鈥檚 the right mix?

Harki: On some level, I think everybody should have a basic level of data journalism or a basic knowledge of it. It鈥檚 just going to help you as a journalist. You鈥檙e going to know a little bit more than other people about how to handle some of this stuff because everyone comes into contact with data.

I feel like in terms of skill sets in data, I鈥檓 not that advanced. But I can look at something and know what the data is, and know that we need to work with it, and know what鈥檚 out there or find it ourselves to be able to do stories like this鈥攖o be able to look at it and say, 鈥極K, what is the best we can do? What is the best information we can have so that we can speak about this on some authority?鈥�

It is easy to dismiss things sometimes because it鈥檚 one story鈥攊t鈥檚 anecdotal evidence. Being able to put a number on it and say there are patterns to it and there鈥檚 a reason behind those patterns, that鈥檚 a really important thing to be able to do as a journalist and at the heart of why I believe in data journalism.

Plunkett: Your reporting highlights comments from jailers and sheriffs who argue that more resources should be invested in mental health treatment facilities, even if it means pulling funds from traditional policing budgets. What research needs to be done to help policymakers bring this kind of reform?

Harki: It gets really complicated. This is such a localized issue because of the way mental health systems are decentralized in the United States and because jails are decentralized. In a lot of places there鈥檚 not a lot of oversight over county jails, including Virginia. What really needs to happen鈥攁lmost on a municipal level, not even a state level鈥攊s sort of a cost-benefit analysis and people saying, 鈥楬ey look, if we put more money into treatment, then you鈥檙e not going to have as many people getting into jails and into the criminal justice system, and that鈥檚 going to save money in terms of court costs, lawyers, housing.鈥�

Carballo: As Gary was saying, treatment is a more long-term solution. It鈥檚 definitely something that might help with recidivism, and in a lot of the cases we looked at while building the database, sometimes they weren鈥檛 in there鈥攖his wasn鈥檛 their first offense鈥攕o it is definitely a more long-term solution to the problem.

Harki: If you look at places like Miami or Tucson, they鈥檝e done that analysis over time, and they鈥檝e recognized that not only is this better for us as a society because we鈥檙e keeping people out of jail and keeping people from suffering in these places because we don鈥檛 have the ability to treat them there, but we鈥檙e also likely saving money and resources by doing it this way. It鈥檚 just easier on everybody for both moral and monetary reasons.

The 2018 Al Nakkula Award for Police Reporting went to The Virginian-Pilot reporter Gary Harki, whose series "Jailed in Crisis" tracked deaths of people with mental illness in jails across the country. Harki and reporter Rebecca Carballo鈥撯€搘ho helped him with the project as a student at Marquette University鈥撯€搒poke with 抖阴旅行射 News Corps Director Chuck Plunkett about their work for the series, and the need to track such instances more thoroughly.

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Your attention, please

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 22:11:20 +0000

Your attention, please Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 11/01/2018 - 16:11

Agenda-setting researchers discuss how the media shape what we think about

By Stephanie Cook (MJour'18) with an introduction by Elizabeth Skewes

In summer 2017, most of us heard about the shooting of U.S. Rep. Steven Scalise and the aftermath of James Comey's firing.

Around the same time, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to tell us that Vladimir Putin denied meddling in the 2016 election and that 鈥渓ow I.Q. Crazy Mika鈥� Brzezinski鈥攚ho had been critical of him鈥攖ried to play up to him at Mar-a-Lago. And then there was the infamous 鈥渃ovfefe鈥� tweet.

But in the midst of all of that, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke reopened Alaska鈥檚 National Petroleum Reserve to oil and gas exploration, and research showed that every year, more than 65,000 pregnant women in the U.S. suffer life-threatening complications, and that more than 600 women die from these complications.

By and large, the media didn鈥檛 cover these last two stories, which led to a lack of awareness. Unless a friend or family member suffered or died, how would you know that our country is in the midst of a maternity crisis? When the media is distracted, important issues can go unreported. This phenomenon is known as the agenda-setting effect, and it may be changing what we think is important.

Agenda-setting theory holds that the issues that we hear about most in the media are the ones that become important to us as citizens and voters.

The theory began during the 1968 presidential race between Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey, when researchers Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw interviewed voters in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and found a strong correlation between what was being reported in the local news and what voters thought were the important issues of the day.

Fifty years later, this study is one of the most cited in all of mass communication history, and the agenda-setting theory has spawned hundreds of studies in a broad range of contexts. McCombs and Shaw鈥攁long with David Weaver, who joined them soon after the initial study鈥攁re broadly referred to as the founding fathers of agenda-setting theory. Their research continues to inform what we know about the impact of media coverage on people.

During the summer, CMCI Assistant Professor Chris Vargo hosted the three scholars, along with researchers from international and national universities, at a two-day conference celebrating the past, present and future of agenda-setting research.

David Weaver

Roy W. Howard Professor Emeritus
Indiana University in Bloomington

Maxwell McCombs

Jesse H. Jones Centennial Chair in Communication Emeritus
University of Texas at Austin

Donald Shaw

Kenan Professor
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Vargo鈥攚ho teaches in CMCI鈥檚 Department of Advertising, Public Relations and Media Design鈥攕at down with McCombs, Shaw and Weaver to discuss how their work can be applied to the media landscape today.

Vargo: What is agenda setting?

Weaver: Agenda setting has to do with focusing people鈥檚 attention on certain issues or problems鈥攏ot necessary telling them what to think, but what to think about鈥攁nd that鈥檚 an important effect of media that was overlooked for a long time.

Vargo: It鈥檚 still happening today. If you look at Trump and his presidency, it鈥檚 a clear example of him being able to control the agenda on issues鈥攐n what is being talked about in the press. He certainly doesn鈥檛 have control over the way in which the issues are talked about, but he does have the ability to push an issue into the forefront of public debate.

Weaver: And to make certain issues or problems more salient, at the expense of others that some people might consider more important.

Vargo: I think that鈥檚 an intentional tactic to divert attention from one issue to another. When something isn鈥檛 going right, it鈥檚 time to distract鈥攖o set the agenda in a new way. This effect that you really were the first to uncover and prove is now being used by all types of different actors. Today, the agenda-setting effect isn鈥檛 just a media phenomenon, it鈥檚 also a political tactic. Did you ever envision that when you first studied this?

Shaw: Well, it鈥檚 easy to single Trump out, but all presidents have been interested in setting agendas, all the way back to the Founding Fathers. All leaders want to set the agenda. And many of the elements of effective agenda setting were established without knowledge of what they were doing, in a social sciences fashion, by Hitler and his regime. He was very effective at setting agendas. But every leader wants the issues to reflect favorably on themselves and their government.

McCombs: But this is not to say the public is just being programmed. For instance, the studies on the president as an agenda setter show a batting average of about .400鈥�.500, pretty astounding in baseball, not quite so good in public opinion. In many instances it was the media setting the president鈥檚 agenda. Sometimes, it was the other way around. What I particularly remember are two different studies of Ronald Reagan, and they went in opposite directions. Once, he was clearly the agenda setter, and once, the media was clearly the agenda setter.

Vargo: A lot has changed since 1968. The media landscape has certainly become much bigger in the number of media organizations creating news content that鈥檚 consumed, both online and off. How do you think that changes the way agenda setting works today?

McCombs: The New York Times鈥攁nd increasingly The Washington Post鈥攁re still major agenda setters because of their influence on other media. They influence those other media because they鈥檙e the ones who can deploy dozens of reporters to cover things. They simply have the journalistic strength that very few other organizations have.

Shaw: In my view, agenda setting is about what Max alluded to earlier, an exchange of priorities and saliences. We鈥檝e looked at it in a news context, but agenda setting does have all kinds of contexts. We now recognize the audience more than we did, and the audience has huge choice.

Vargo: Do you think that fake news can set the agenda for the country or for a specific group of people? And did fake news have agenda-setting power in the 2016 election?

McCombs: I think it did for some people. I don鈥檛 think it did broadly because, going back to, say, The New York Times and The Washington Post, they may say, 鈥淲e see all these news stories out there but we鈥檝e never heard of all these media sources. Let鈥檚 check these things out.鈥� And in most cases, it doesn鈥檛 check out, so they say, 鈥淚t鈥檚 never going to see the light of day in our newspaper.鈥� For some people, yes, it probably can have an effect. Broadly speaking, I think our media system鈥檚 healthy enough to push back on that, and increasingly so, now that it鈥檚 clearly out in the open.

Weaver: Can agenda setting exist without verifiable facts? I think so. If certain messages are repeated over and over again, they become more salient, and unless there鈥檚 some kind of contradictory messages, then I think over time, people can come to believe that, 鈥淵es, this is true.鈥� And, 鈥淵es, this is important.鈥�

Fifty years after their seminal study on coverage of the 1968 presidential election, the founding fathers of agenda-setting research and CMCI鈥檚 Chris Vargo discuss how the media continue to shape what we think about.

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Wildfires

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Oct 2017 06:20:30 +0000

Wildfires Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 10/25/2017 - 00:20

As a journalist and a communication scholar discuss the growing issue of wildfires, they reveal there is more to firefighting than extinguishing flames.

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